What now for Health and Community Services in Willand?.

Moving on from the disappointment of no longer having a Health and Community Centre, what can we do?

When I became a Parish Councillor in 2007, I was involved with the Healthy Living Centre in Hemyock, providing web services.  The site was donated to the village, a charity was set up. and Devon County provided the funds for refurbishment from the proceeds of the sale of the airport. After a short time the Healthy living Centre came into being. This gave me some ideas about how we could provide full community facilities for our Village.

At the same time, I volunteered to be part of a task force within MDDC to consider the impact of the recession and from this, we developed an information web site called "impact"
Please see http://www.willandmatters.org.uk/impact/ and you will see that it looks at the issues facing various groups of people, those in business, those approaching retirement etc.  The site then has advice and pointers to agencies which may be able to help.

This gave me an insight as to how we might practically approach the needs of the village by using "issues facing".  I have done some work with a group of churches using this method and it has proved extremely helpful and much of the information we collected is common to our village situation.  For example, we used to have several generations of the same family in the village. Today, those families are scattered across the UK and even the World.  So there is no local family support for many people.  Should the community be helping to fill the gap?

There are three immediate steps which the Willand Matters group can advise and help with.  These are only my thoughts - you may have better ideas!

1 we need to promote all the organisations and businesses in the village to our residents and beyond.  This will strengthen the community and make us aware of what we have in our village.  If you have a business of any size, why not join our community site so that we can give you more visibility in the area.  If you are an organisation in the village you are welcome to join.  I am about to launch a regular events application and it will also have the ability to add special events.

2 we need to develop an "Issues facing" site to help those in need and also carers.  Did you know that the biggest single problem for the future will be loneliness?  We have residents who cannot easily get out and the highlight of their day is the next visit from a carer.  

.3 We need to develop the Willand Matters site to be a true community site for the village.  What do we need to add to the site to achieve this?

As we work out the health and community services needed for our village (and we have a long list already) we will no doubt find facilities in the wider area to allow us to deliver them.  We will then be looking for volunteers. 

Please add your ideas and comments below.  If you wish to add your business or organisation, please email ray.ursell@willandmatters.org.uk. If you wish to become more involved in the future, please let me know.

By the way, we need to accommodate those residents who have no access to or do not wish to use technology.  We cannot ignore this section of our community - ideas please?

Updates to the willandmatters web site

What would you like to see on the web site?  I will be removing the Parish Council section as they now have their own site.  They will still have a page on this site for major items they with to publish to get extra visibility and we will still maintain the minutes archive and the magazine archive.

what else do we need? - buy/sell, lost and found, organisation of the month?, business focus?

Please add your thoughts below and make our web site support our residents fully.

Ray Ursell
9th September 2018

07770 238588
ray.ursell@willandmatters.org.uk